things are looking up

So these couple of days have been much better than my last post made my time out here to be. I'm starting to feel really comfortable with what is going on in class and understanding more of what people are saying. I also haven't needed to spend every waking hour on homework either so that has taken a lot of stress off of not being able to see the city.


Thursday was an almost perfect day. I had class in the morning with a new teacher (our class is being team taught) so it was a little different but Josh and I laughed our way through the entire thing because of all the dumb comments from the token frat boy on the trip. I had barely any homework and the weather was really nice out so I went to study and relax on the lawn next to my building with Jordan (she's a girl fyi). While we were there a random French kid sat down next to us and we were talking with him for like 45 min. It was so random and he kept making fun of Jordan because her family forever ago was from Germany. Afterwards she and I went on a walk through campus and then met up with some other kids for dinner. The place we went to had hot pots and it was so nice for a change to have fresh prepared food instead of pointing to a vat of food and having some scooped out. That night we were planning on checking out a beer garden in WuDaoKou but once we were there we couldn't find it. This is the point in the night where everything got very "typical foreign student in Beijing" so we ended up going to Lush, a bar with a mostly foreign crowd. I was relaxed and having a great time singing along to the music from the early 90's when about half our group left to go to Propaganda, a club, again with a very foreign clientele. The four of us remaining eventually decided to join them. The club itself was a lot of fun and we danced the night away.

Friday was relatively uneventful. Everyone was really tired after class so for the most part everyone went back to their rooms to do their own thing. I found a website to stream How I Met Your Mother with Chinese subtitles so I've been trying to watch the while reading the Chinese. That night we went to HouHai, a lake surrounded by restaurants and bars. When we first got there, Matt, Megan H. (of the seven girls on the trip, three of them are named Megan), and I got separated from everyone else and walked halfway around the lake looking for them. We finally found them, but I felt like I was playing the role of Mama Goose making sure all my little goslings were in line and got home safely. We had to be up the next morning to go to the Great Wall so I wanted to make sure no one was too drunk or too lost because I could imagine trying to climb the Great Wall hungover would be pretty miserable.

Saturday the program director took us to see the Great Wall and to Silk Street Market, but I'll post about that later because I need to write another 5 page paper on my experience for class. That night I was utterly exhausted and not feeling so great so I called it an early night.

This morning, the first day I didn't have to get up early since I've been here, I was woken up very early by workers repainting the walls on my hall and feeling like I've come down with a cold. It seems that a couple other kids are starting to get sick as well so I've been staying in bed, resting, and drinking lots of water and emergen-c's. The wind today has been extremely strong and I can hear it whipping against my 9th floor windows. I'm kind of glad I'm actually staying in today because I'm sure all the dust and pollution would not help me feel any better.

Until next time...